The American Middle Class is Rapidly Disappearing

[Curtisp]

Im with you bro. Im trying to commit some industrial espionage so i can trade them my info for one of these bots.

See if you can get one with the "reach around" software bundle pre-installed.

[sgreger1]

See if you can get one with the "reach around" software bundle pre-installed.

Oh no no no. Im going to need an advanced team of programmers to get this thing to do what I plan on using it for

[Jimbob_Rebel]

And that leads us to the real problem my friend. The US has advanced too far past the rest of the world. It cannot be stable no matter what. Our lifestyle will continue to get more expensive, and our jobs will slowly be lost to those overseas who will do it cheaper. Theres almost no way to stop it.

I call bullshit.

It would be the easiest thing in the world to correct. Shift the tax burden from the incomes of working americans to imported goods and the dynamics would change overnight. It would all of a sudden become much cheaper to produce goods here. Entrepaneurs and investors would step in to take advantage of the opportunity and americans are working again. Sorry, the graduated income tax has to go along with the 70% taxes that our vegan friend is slavering over..........in the free market that's called "incentive" and you kill jobs when you remove it.

There would still be problems to contend with as the U.S. is no longer a nation governed by rule of law or characterized by a free market. As the banking fiasco has demonstrated we have crony capitalism degenerating into fascism which is not the most efficient system for providing quality goods at a reasonable price.

I'm not an auto worker but it seems to me the major decisions which make or break a company are made by CEO's who receive obscene compensation packages for running their companies into the ground. A couple years ago american auto makers were hurting when oil spiked because the company leadership wanted to rely upon sales of pickup trucks and SUV's.............no union man made that decision.

One other problem with american buisiness is that companies are not free to hire the best or most capable employees but must adhere to EEOC guidelines. Employment tests are ruled to be discriminatiory based on disparate impact alone even though no one is ever able to point out which particular questions are discriminatory. It's funny, all this started with Duke Energy being sued by the federal government for using an aptitude test and the military uses similar aptitude tests to this day to determine acceptance and placement.

[fdknuckles]

If I might be so bold as to turn this thread a little. What made this country "great" ... was not unions (and I am a member), it was a combination of education, perspiration and will. This country was once the envy of all other nations churning out an upper class (highly degreed/ bred (born into it) individuals), middle class (educated/ resourceful), and working class (read tough enough not to give up or rely on others).

Since the 1970's our educational system has gone from being a model for the rest of the world, to a punchline of a sad joke. If you want to be a more competitive nation, don't settle for ..."it mets the standards". Guess what, standards are for people who want to do just enough, if you want to be the best...it takes MORE from all parties involved. From those who set the syllabus to the parents of the students. Why does my son go to school less than 1/2 the days in the year...yet they have to cut PE, Music, Art and Science....make room damn it.

Americans worked, we found a way to improve our own individual situations without a helping hand from uncle Sam. However, we have become LAZY. The American dream is no longer an aspiration, too many see it as a right, something to be handed to them on a silver platter. If you want a better life America...go make it. If you want a job, find something your good at and make it work for you. The working class are alive and well in America, but is rapidly being outnumbered by a new social class.....the psuedo-intelectual socialist.

You say you can't raise a family flipping burgers at McDonalds...If I remember correctly, there's no law saying you can't work 2 or 3 jobs to improve your position in this world until you can find a job that will. When did a flat screen TV and a $20,000 car in the driveway become a middle class RIGHT..... It's not.

Work hard, Save, Live below your means and if you get knocked down stand up and fight your way back. This is our country and if you want it to remain so, YOU are going to have to do something to stop it from failing.

[sgreger1]

I call bullshit.

It would be the easiest thing in the world to correct. Shift the tax burden from the incomes of working americans to imported goods and the dynamics would change overnight. It would all of a sudden become much cheaper to produce goods here. Entrepaneurs and investors would step in to take advantage of the opportunity and americans are working again. Sorry, the graduated income tax has to go along with the 70% taxes that our vegan friend is slavering over..........in the free market that's called "incentive" and you kill jobs when you remove it.

There would still be problems to contend with as the U.S. is no longer a nation governed by rule of law or characterized by a free market. As the banking fiasco has demonstrated we have crony capitalism degenerating into fascism which is not the most efficient system for providing quality goods at a reasonable price.

I'm not an auto worker but it seems to me the major decisions which make or break a company are made by CEO's who receive obscene compensation packages for running their companies into the ground. A couple years ago american auto makers were hurting when oil spiked because the company leadership wanted to rely upon sales of pickup trucks and SUV's.............no union man made that decision.

One other problem with american buisiness is that companies are not free to hire the best or most capable employees but must adhere to EEOC guidelines. Employment tests are ruled to be discriminatiory based on disparate impact alone even though no one is ever able to point out which particular questions are discriminatory. It's funny, all this started with Duke Energy being sued by the federal government for using an aptitude test and the military uses similar aptitude tests to this day to determine acceptance and placement.

I see your call of bullshit and raise you 1 call of shinaniganz.


If you used tarrifs or taxes or any other method to make it so foreign products were too expensive, than i hope you enjoy buying 50$ white tshirts and 20$ strawberries. If US employees made these goods, all the goods would be twice as expensive because you have to pay americans more produce them.

[sgreger1]

If I might be so bold as to turn this thread a little. What made this country "great" ... was not unions (and I am a member), it was a combination of education, perspiration and will. This country was once the envy of all other nations churning out an upper class (highly degreed/ bred (born into it) individuals), middle class (educated/ resourceful), and working class (read tough enough not to give up or rely on others).

Since the 1970's our educational system has gone from being a model for the rest of the world, to a punchline of a sad joke. If you want to be a more competitive nation, don't settle for ..."it mets the standards". Guess what, standards are for people who want to do just enough, if you want to be the best...it takes MORE from all parties involved. From those who set the syllabus to the parents of the students. Why does my son go to school less than 1/2 the days in the year...yet they have to cut PE, Music, Art and Science....make room damn it.

Americans worked, we found a way to improve our own individual situations without a helping hand from uncle Sam. However, we have become LAZY. The American dream is no longer an aspiration, too many see it as a right, something to be handed to them on a silver platter. If you want a better life America...go make it. If you want a job, find something your good at and make it work for you. The working class are alive and well in America, but is rapidly being outnumbered by a new social class.....the psuedo-intelectual socialist.

You say you can't raise a family flipping burgers at McDonalds...If I remember correctly, there's no law saying you can't work 2 or 3 jobs to improve your position in this world until you can find a job that will. When did a flat screen TV and a $20,000 car in the driveway become a middle class RIGHT..... It's not.

Work hard, Save, Live below your means and if you get knocked down stand up and fight your way back. This is our country and if you want it to remain so, YOU are going to have to do something to stop it from failing.

THIS!



Your completely right, we believe a 30$ an hour job and a brand new car and house are rights, and that even if we stop working for a few years we should be entitled to a paycheck from the government so we can continue living above our means.

It does not work that way.

[shikitohno]

If I might be so bold as to turn this thread a little. What made this country "great" ... was not unions (and I am a member), it was a combination of education, perseverance and will.

Fixed, unless you really meant the sweat was kind of important to that bit...

[sgreger1]

I am not sure on how to do the math here but I am fairly certain that you could support a lot of jobs, even $80.00 an hour jobs , with 1.6 billion dollars. You have to look long and hard to find workers, even union ones, making anywhere near $80.00 an hour but I could get a list of thousands of CEOS making millions if not tens of millions annually. I would just love to see an 70% tax rate on anybody making a million plus a year. That way, a company would be much better off reinvesting it's profits instead of paying some CEO's fat salary. This was also one of my major issues with Obama working with the insurance companies to create a health care plan. It is not unheard of for an insurance CEO or board member to make 7-15 million per year. How many families will need to buy health insurance at $1000 bucks a month just to pay their salaries? The problem is not the poor or middle class. It is the wealthy in this country that want us to all work for $1.00 a day.

10,416. Thats how many 80$ an hour jobs you could buy with 1.6 billion dollars, assuming they are working a 40 hour work week.

But vegan, i dont have a problem with paying the people at the top a good wage. They make the decisions, they got the education, they are the ones who take the heat if something goes wrong, they take the risk. I agree they make too much, but even that is debateable, this is not a communist country, so if a company manages to make a billion dollars, you may want to pay your ceo well, its not my decision.

What i have a problem with is the idea that now, on this new playing field thats been established, ceos for major companies that have a big effect on the economy can run the company into the ground (and the economy along with it) and then get bailed out by the government. Thats what i dont get. We should reward success, by all means, but we should punish failure. The fact that obama gave all this no strings attached money to these failing companies and banks, in hopes that they would lend more money and create more jobs is what pisses me off. Because you know what they did instead? The banks didnt lend more, they took that money and invested it in safe low yield investments so they could pay the gov back someday but still make a 2-4% profit. And you know what the companies did with that money? Not create more jobs, no, instead they laid off half the workforce, then declared a victory and paid the ceos multi-million dollar bonuses.




This is the problem. Government can now decide who floats and who sinks, who survives and who fails. Even as much as you hate ceos who make 5 million a year, tell me vegan, do you think its a good policy to allow the government this power? To be able to pick and choose? To prop up the most evil and greedy and allow the most hardworking to fail? This is what it has become. Now since these big corps didnt go under, they will remain solvent and steal from us for many years to come. Tell me vegan, is that why you vote dem? I hear a lot about how republicans love big corps and the evil rich, but no one, not bush and reagan combined, have done more to help the rich than obama. Bush gave tax cuts to the wealthy, but obama used taxpayer money to buy their companies when they went under, but allowed them to keep the profits. Obama allowed them to recieve billion dollar bonuses. If thats not corporate welfare, than i dont know what is man.

[Jwalker]

My union is ridiculous they want me to pay a 200 initation fee and 47.50 a month. I work part time as a courtesy clerk for the summer so at 8.65 an hour (min wage is 8.41) it would take me 30 hours to pay that, and then 6 hours of every month goes to the union. My cousin is in the same union and said they wanted 100 dollars for initiation and 27.50 a month.

[Jimbob_Rebel]

I see your call of bullshit and raise you 1 call of shinaniganz.


If you used tarrifs or taxes or any other method to make it so foreign products were too expensive, than i hope you enjoy buying 50$ white tshirts and 20$ strawberries. If US employees made these goods, all the goods would be twice as expensive because you have to pay americans more produce them.

I already buy american where I have the option.Chipewa or Redwing boots, NAPA or Craftsman hand tools.........outside of electronics or denims you can usually find an american made alternative if you look. When it comes to guns though, all bets are off. I buy what I think best suits my needs. This is often an american made gun but I do own several Sigs and a Walther P-22.

[Darwin]

"Buying American" is basically an impossibility anymore. You have to severely constrict your purchases to the point of great and fatal annoyance if you are particularly ardent about it. There are very few products that do not have at least some foreign content. Most products have tangled and difficult to trace provenances even for the most "American" product out there. It's all just part of the huge mishmash that is the global economy and there is no, repeat no, reeling the situation back in and it would not be a good idea if it could be. We sit at computers with large foreign content, we drive vehicles with much foreign content, our foodstuffs come from every corner of every continent on the globe (excepting the Antarctic of course). The clothes we wear, shoes we buy, TVs we watch, watches we consult, energy we consume, tools we use, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum. We can't get away from it and we shouldn't try. International commerce is the biggest factor in the relative peace of the world. Any given country is far less likely to war against a trading partner than otherwise and although it seems that international peace is more elusive than ever matters would be much worse if universal trade held much less sway.

It is indeed ironic that sentiments for "buying American" would surface on a forum notionally devoted to what is mostly a foreign product! The snus and snuff that we use mostly comes from overseas and I don't hear too many complaints about that. For U.S. workers the upside of global commerce is lower prices for almost everything and the fact that a great many internationally sold products have American content, intellectual content especially. There is no going back. Punitive tariffs only distort the marketplace, usually to us po' folk's disadvantage. Other countries are not any fonder of criticism of their labor practices than we are and in the great majority of cases those downtrodden "exploited" workers so beloved of the Progressive political class have few of the options that we do so a crap job for crap wages frequently constitutes a large positive change in their economic fortunes. So next time you see one of those third world "sweatshops" on the TV consider how much worse off those people would be if misguided American self-righteousness closed the place down. Also try to consider how much more constricted and limited our own choices would be if we could only "buy American".

[Curtisp]

My union is ridiculous they want me to pay a 200 initation fee and 47.50 a month. I work part time as a courtesy clerk for the summer so at 8.65 an hour (min wage is 8.41) it would take me 30 hours to pay that, and then 6 hours of every month goes to the union. My cousin is in the same union and said they wanted 100 dollars for initiation and 27.50 a month.

That's weird, you have to join as a part-timer?..hmm.

[RobsanX]

or denims

Carhartt.

[sgreger1]

I already buy american where I have the option.Chipewa or Redwing boots, NAPA or Craftsman hand tools.........outside of electronics or denims you can usually find an american made alternative if you look. When it comes to guns though, all bets are off. I buy what I think best suits my needs. This is often an american made gun but I do own several Sigs and a Walther P-22.

But jimbo, if EVERYTHING had to come from america, that would change. The cost of them making those american tools you buy would increase. The cnc machines would be more expensive, the workers would have to be paid more to cover their new cost of living increase, the materials that go into the factory would increase, the cars they drive would be more expensive, all that goes into the cost. The prices of everything from food to basic materials (and especially patrolium based products) would go through the roof. If we didnt buy any foreign made oil, the plastic wrapper on a twinky would cost 10$.

[Jimbob_Rebel]

But jimbo, if EVERYTHING had to come from america, that would change. The cost of them making those american tools you buy would increase. The cnc machines would be more expensive, the workers would have to be paid more to cover their new cost of living increase, the materials that go into the factory would increase, the cars they drive would be more expensive, all that goes into the cost. The prices of everything from food to basic materials (and especially patrolium based products) would go through the roof. If we didnt buy any foreign made oil, the plastic wrapper on a twinky would cost 10$.

At this point there are no really good solutions because the treason lobby in washington has let things go too far. We can pay higher prices in the near future(the market will adjust in accordance to supply/demand given time) for american made goods or we can live in a third world toilet with rampant unemployment,hyper-inflation and a rebellious beggar class. It's kinda like getting up in the morning and having to pick out your cleanest dirty shirt to wear to the laundromat.

There's no need to be silly about taxing imported oil. It's not like we have to tax everything or nothing, we'll tax those things we need to tax to foster american industry and infrastructure.